


Tales from Haven Hearth

by Zalphon



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls I: Arena, Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Elder Scrolls Online, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26987986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zalphon/pseuds/Zalphon





	Tales from Haven Hearth

**Tales from Haven Hearth: Broken Pedestals  
**

Brant sat in the corner staring into a mug of over-hopped ale. It was bitter and pale just like him and maybe that’s part of why he drank it so much—it was the one thing that made him feel like he wasn’t entirely alone in the world. Like maybe there was something out there like him. But that was stupid and he knew it; he was thinking too much about the same drink he had been drinking since the War ended, partially because it he liked the taste and partially because it was the strongest beer that the Haven Hearth regularly stocked. He had tried other kinds of beverages, especially spirits, but he found his heart always came back around to beer because beer reminded him of a time that was long gone—a time when he could still look himself in the mirror. He missed those times and that’s why he drank. He drank both to forget and to remember and perhaps that’s why he could never do either as strongly as he’d hoped, but it didn’t matter. He still drank.

The door creaked open and the cold winds of a northern Skyrim winter came rushing into the tavern that seemed to be lost from the rest of the world, but this was a rare occurrence. Seldom did that door creak open. All the regulars pretty much lived in Haven Hearth and a newcomer was a rare sighting which prompted Brant to stop wallowing in his sorrows and look up, if only for just a moment, although what he did see did catch his interest—briefly. Standing in the doorway was a young man of Nordic descent, barely old enough to have hair on his chin, but still, he had made it here and that in and of itself was no small feat. He also noted that the kid was dressed head to toe in a patchwork suit of armor and a sword that had seen better days, but he didn’t want to bother with the kid and returned to his drink. 

A few minutes passed which was a few sips for Brant before the Kid started eyeing him across the bar. Brant didn’t like it. He never liked when people started to notice him because that meant they knew who he was and he hated that more than anything else in the world—except himself. He always hated himself the most, but this, this was a close second. He knew where this was going and that’s why he guzzled down what was left in his stein and watched it bubble right back up as it always did in Haven Hearth, which he promptly guzzled down again, which prompted it to bubble back up again. 

Before he had finished a stein and a half, he had been comfortable—at least—as comfortable as he could get without losing some control of his faculties—but now the edge was dulled and he felt the alcohol start to hit already. It was enough. Not enough to leave him stumbling over like some drunkard, but enough that when what he knew would come to pass did come to pass, he would be ready for it. He just wished he was wrong and that he had drank so quickly for nothing, but this was one thing that he was never wrong about—no matter how much he wished he was. 

The kid’s poorly disguised glances had grown longer and had ultimately given way to a series of stares until Brant would finally shoot him back one, which would prompt the kid to shoot his eyes elsewhere to avoid being caught. Brant nursed this stein as he waited for the kid to make his over as he knew he would, but the kid was shy despite walking in with that triumphant march of his like he was some big, damn hero. In a way, the kid reminded Brant of himself when he was younger. Enthusiastic, ambitious, entirely too cocky, yep—it was like looking into a mirror that turned back the clock thirty years—or was it forty now? Brant couldn’t tell anymore; he had forgotten how old he was a long time ago. It just wasn’t one of those things that seemed important anymore, not that much of anything seemed important anymore.

The kid got to his feet and started walking over, his armor clanking and scraping against itself with every step. He looked at Brant with big, blue eyes that had all the hope and optimism in the world behind them when he asked the question that Brant hated the third-most in the world. “Ar-ar-are you Brant Hard-Heart?”

Brant’s sigh betrayed his feelings as he stared to the stein that had already been half-way emptied in whatever amount of time it had been since he guzzled the stein and a half and he debated if he wanted to top it off before answering that question. He ultimately decided not to, just taking a sip, really just enough to wet his mouth more than anything. “I am, son,” he said. “Can I help you with something or can I get back to my beer if it’s all the same to you?”

“I—I’ve heard stories about you, Sir. Stories about how you helped make our home free from the Imperials and I—I just—”

Brant held up his hand, shaking his head and taking a drink. “You’ve heard stories, son, but that’s all they are. Just stories.”

“That can’t be true, Sir! It just can’t,” the Boy said. “My father’s father said he was at Pale Pass when you and your men did what was right and turned against the Imperial Invaders!”

“Listen, son, your father’s father probably was there and I’m not going to say he wasn’t, but I am going to tell you this: That was a very long time ago and I’d much prefer to let the past stay in the past.”

“But why, Sir? You’re a hero, you know that? People thought you died years ago and I heard a story—a rumor really—that you were out here and I had to see if it was true. I had to meet you.”

Brant shook his head and took what he intended to be a sip from his stein, but it turned into more, so much so that he found it bubbling back up as he was sucking it down. “Listen son, I don’t mean to hurt your feelin’s or nothing of the sort, but I’m not the man you think I am and I think it’d be best if you just left me to my beer.” He could see the gears rolling in that kid’s head as he processed what had just been said and he could tell the kid was debating if it was worth pressing the issue. He also reckoned the kid must’ve not been too bright given he decided it was in fact worth it which prompted another sigh from Brant, but this one, this one was more annoyed.

“You know, Sir, you’re actually why I’m going to join the People’s Army and fight the Dominion. I grew up hearing stories about the Civil War and about heroes like you who made it possible for us to stave off the Empire and drive them out of our homeland and I—”

“Kid, shut your damn mouth,” Brant interrupted. He could see the look of hurt across the kid’s face, but he didn’t much care—maybe it was the fact that he had knocked back a few steins in the last hour or maybe it was just the fact that this kid was getting under his skin even when he got warned to back off. 

“Son, you don’t know a goddamned thing about what you’re talking about,” Brant said. “You don’t have a clue about what I did or what your father’s father did or what any of us did back then and you never will. You ain’t got a goddamned clue about nothin’, son, and that ain’t a bad thing. It’s not. I’m tellin’ you as one who has been there and done it. There ain’t no glory in the battlefield, there ain’t no honor, there’s just a lot of blood and guts and people you care who get buried in mass graves because we ain’t got time to dig up individual ones.”

“But—”

“But nothin’, son. But nothin’. You’re comin’ here tellin’ me how you wanna be some big damn hero like me, because you think I’m some hero—well I’ll tell you what a hero I am. I’ll tell you all about it. I took my company of men who were starving, freezing, half of ‘em were so sick that they were on the brink of death anyways, and told them we had to make a choice. We could keep waiting for supplies and reinforcements or we could turn coat and cozy up to the people on your father’s father’s side and we put it to a vote, because we all had stake in that decision and we ended up agreeing to turn coat and to feed the Stormcloaks intel and ultimately ambush the reinforcements that were supposed to come to us six months after we needed them in exchange for warm beds, full bellies, and clean clothes for the first time in months. You think I’m still some damn hero, son, because there ain’t nothin’ about me that’s a hero.”

“But—Ulfric—he—he publicly honored you.”

“He honored me and all of us in Echo Company because we held the Pass which stopped the flow of Imperial reinforcements from the South, but I’m no hero, kid. Do you think any of us from down south wanted to come up here? No. We wanted to mind our own business, grow our own crops, do our own thing, live our own lives, but we got told that y’all up here were gonna come raid our homes and take our livelihoods from us. You think we gave a rat’s ass if the Empire was taxing you or not? We didn’t care. We just wanted to live our lives, but we got sold a false bill of goods, son. We got told you all were the enemy when the reality is that the only enemy were the ones at the top we had to go wage war with you for stuff that didn’t matter to people like you and me.”

The kid stood there in a shocked silence at Brant’s words with that glaze over his eyes. He couldn’t process it all, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t trying with everything he had to make sense of it all. He couldn’t though. He just couldn’t, but he did finally say something. “So you—you killed your own countrymen because—because you were hungry?”

“We did, son. Didn’t have much a choice at the time and let me tell you, that kinda thing doesn’t leave you be. You don’t forget things like that, no matter how much you try,” Brant said, tapping the stein in front of him. “You just gotta live with ‘em.”

“H-how do you do it?”

“Same way anyone does anything, son. I just keep doing my best to keep going day-to-day and hoping it’ll be over, but somehow, I don’t think it will be for a long, long time.”

“D-do you think Sovngarde awaits you, Sir?”

Brant sighed, this one wasn’t annoyed though; it was sad. It was pained. It was—a lot of things—and that’s why Brant guzzled yet another stein and his words started to take a bit of a slur to them as he continued to speak when he probably shouldn’t have. “Son, there ain’t no such thing. It’s just a lie we tell kids so that you’ll be happy to throw your life away just like we did when we were kids.”

“Bullshit.”

Brant couldn’t help but smile at that. Not too often did the people who made those looks at him and interrupted his reminiscing of times both better and worse get so direct with him. “Son, if it’s real, I know I’m not going there, and if it’s not, nobody is, so I just don’t trouble too much with it. I just think it’s probably a crock of shit because I have spoken to plenty of men with their intestines falling out or with a sword in their gut and ain’t a one of them said a word about seeing the light of Sovngarde or hearing their ancestors calling them home, nope, they just said things were getting dark and that they were getting cold. They just begged and begged for me not to leave them and I can say that I’ve only ever had to leave a couple and never by choice, but.” Brant’s voice trailed off towards the end until he fell entirely silent after the but as he stared into the stein. 

He remembered the two he had to leave behind perfectly. Private Gregory Jennings and First Sergeant Richard Cross were the ones he had to leave behind and those faces in their final moments were forever burned into his mind. Jennings was a boy probably a little bit younger than this kid who had a crooked nose and misshapen yellow teeth, but he had a hell of sense of humor. That kid got in so much trouble but cracked a joke at just the right time to stop Brant from getting too mad at him and as for Richard, how could he ever forget him? Richard was his First Sergeant and kept his company in line and he was the meanest son of a bitch east of the Iliac Bay, but goddamn was he a hell of a man. He was the kind of man that everyone in the company admired and wanted to be like, even Brant who was his commanding officer, wanted to be like First Sergeant Cross. 

Yep, the memories came flooding in and Brant found himself lost in the torrents until the kid snapped him loose. “Why’d you leave them behind?”

Brant couldn’t help but laugh at that question. Couldn’t help but laugh because it was that or cry which he was going to do, but he knew it was probably gonna be both. “Why’d I leave him behind, son? Why do you think? We were getting our asses kicked up one side of the Pass and down the other; I didn’t have a choice.” His laugh-crying was giving way to anger-crying.

“You think I wanted to leave them? I never would’ve left them if I had the choice! They were my men, but we were in the midst of combat! You think I wanted to leave a kid like Jennings to face the great nothingness of death on his own? He was a boy—a mere boy—and he had his guts splayed out for all to see in the snow! He had never even held a woman, son! Never, but there he was with his guts hanging out and blood gushing all over the place and I couldn’t even be there for him! I couldn’t even be there with him and you want to ask me why I left him? You really want to ask that, son? I oughta kick your ass! I oughta run you through right here and I swear I would if this wasn’t Haven Hearth, I swear I would! How dare you—how dare you act like I wanted to leave them! I ‘d have given anything I could to trade places with either of them and I swear on Talos’ name, but you want to stand there like I was just sitting popping back steins while my men got ripped to pieces? You really wanna do that, son? You really want make that mistake?!”

The kid stepped back, his eyes wide and his breathing rapid at Brant’s verbal onslaught and he just stood there in a paralyzed silence as Brant kept frothing at the mouth in his growingly incomprehensible tirade that had become little more than slurred half-words. The Bartender shot a glance over in their general direction and the kid felt the hair on the back of his neck rise before Brant’s face plopped down onto the table in an act of sudden unconsciousness. “Mister Farrow, a word if you would?” the Bartender asked.

The kid was still stunned with fear at what all had just transpired but he felt this inescapable impulse to go see what the Bartender wanted. He couldn’t quite understand it, but he found himself regaining his ambulatory function and walking towards the Bartender without even thinking about it. “Mister Farrow, while I do appreciate your patronage, I do think you’ve seen what you come, did you not?”

“I—,” the kid said, only to be interrupted.

“Please, don’t make this more difficult than it has to be, Mister Farrow. You came here to find a living legend and that living legend is the one that you found, but I can tell you’re dissatisfied with what you’ve discovered.”

“I—I expected—”

“You expected something that isn’t real, Mister Farrow. You expected a man who saw the horrors of war and walked away not only unscathed, but made better for having witnessed them. So I have a question for you, Mister Farrow: Do you still wish to be like Brant Hard-Heart?”

“I—”

“That’s what I expected, Mister Farrow. I hope things go well for you in your travels and I hope you do pursue that thought running across your mind; you’d make a good painter.”

“How--?”

“Because Mister Farrow, I am the current proprietor of the Haven Hearth and she knows everything about you the moment you step foot in and long before, for she is very selective in her clientele. That said, your business here is concluded, Mister Farrow. We will see you again another time.”

“What other—”

“When you have more business here of course, Mister Farrow. Now then, please, vacate the premises, she doesn’t want to have to do it for you but she will if she has to.”

The kid took the warning from the Bartender and stepped out into what he expected to be the cold wintry winds of Skyrim but where he found himself was in the thriving heart of the Commercial District of the Imperial City. He was just outside some tavern he had never seen before and when he opened the door to it, he didn’t see the inside of Haven Hearth, but of a different tavern. He closed the door and scanned the busy street which was bustling with people moving from build to building and street carts to street cart, but something caught his eye—something he felt was fate, or perhaps something more. He saw a sign: “Imperial City Painters’ Guild”

  
And below it was another sign: “Apprentices Wanted”

The kid sat there rubbing his eyes for several moments in disbelief, but what he saw was real and that prompted him to get up and start walking over. He eventually even opened up the door and walked on in, but as he walked in, he couldn’t help but think of the conversation with that crazy old man in that obscure bar. Had it been just a dream? Had it been real? Had it been something in between? He couldn’t tell, but a part of him, a part of him really hoped it had been real and a part of him—a big part of him—hoped that one day Brant would finally make peace with his demons. Yep. That was the thing he was thinking about as he stepped through that door, not his future, not the fact that he would get to pursue his artistic passion of being a painter, but instead, a choice encounter with a man who had seen too much and gone through more than anyone ever should. He wanted to tell the old man thank you for sharing with him, but he knew he couldn’t—not until he found himself back in Haven Hearth and who knew when that would be? Not him, but he knew it would be some day. He just hoped Brant would still be around to see it.


End file.
